Croatian language

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The Croatian language is one of the standard versions of the Central-South Slavic diasystem, formerly (and still frequently) called Serbo-Croatian language. It is used primarily by Croats.

Modern Croatian standard language is a continuous outgrowth of more than nine hundred years old literature written in the interference of Croatian liturgical Church Slavonic and vernacular Chakavian. If we narrow out the subject, the Croatian Church Slavonic had been abandoned by mid 1400s, and Croatian “purely” vernacular literature has been in existence for more than 8 centuries — a story of remarkable linguistic continuity with only a few shock points in 20th century.

Contents

Early development

The beginning of the Croatian written language can be located in the 9th century when Old Church Slavonic was adopted as the language of the liturgy. This language was gradually adapted to non-liturgical purposes and became known as the Croatian version of Old Slavonic. The two variants of the language, liturgical Church Slavonic and non-liturgical Chakavian, continued to be a part of the Glagolitic service as late as the mid-9th century.

Until the end of the 11th century, Croatian medieval texts were written in three scripts: Latin, Glagolitic, and Croatian Cyrillic (bosančica), and also in three languages: Old-Croatian (Chakavian), Latin and Old Slavonic. The latter developed into what is referred to as the Croatian variant of Church Slavonic between the 12th and the 16th century.

File:Novak.jpg
Glagolitic Missal of Duke Novak, 1368

The most important early monument of Croatian literacy is the Baška tablet from the late 11th century. It is a large stone tablet found in the small church of St. Lucy on the Croatian island of Krk, containing text written mostly in Chakavian, today a dialect of Croatian, and in Croatian Glagolitic script; this is the first major document confirming the early existence of a distinct Old-Croatian language in its archaic Chakavian variant. It is also important to the history of the nation as it mentions Zvonimir, the king of Croatia at the time. However, the luxurious and ornate representative liturgical texts of Croatian Church Slavonic continued to the later era when they coexisted with the Croatian vernacular literature in Chakavian. The most notable are the "Missal of Duke Novak" from Lika region in northwestern Croatia (1368), "Evangel from Reims" (1395, named after the town of its final destination), "Missal of Duke Hrvoje" from Bosnia and Split in Dalmatia (1404) and the first printed book in Croatian language (1483).

File:Vinodol.jpg
The Vinodol Codex, 1288

Also, during the 13th century major Croatian vernacular texts appeared, the most important among them being "Istrian land survey", 1275 and "The Vinodol Codex", 1288., both in Chakavian dialect.

The Ikavish-Šćakavian dialect literature, based almost exclusively on Chakavian original texts of religious provenance (missals, breviaries, prayer books) appeared almost a century later. The first important purely Shtokavian vernacular text is Vatican Croatian Prayer Book, ca. 1400.

File:Vat.jpg
Vatican Croatian Prayer Book

Both the language used in legal texts and that used in Glagolitic literature, gradually came under the influence of the vernacular Chakavian which considerably affected its phonological, morphological and lexical system. From the 14th and the 15th centuries, both secular and religious songs at church festivals were composed in this vernacular one.

Writers of early Croatian religious poetry (začinjavci), translators and editors gradually introduced the vernacular Chakavian into their works. These začinjavci were the forerunners of the rich literary production of the 15th and 16th centuries. The language of religious poems, translations, miracle and morality plays, contributed to the popular character of medieval Croatian literature.

Modern language and standardisation

Although first purely vernacular Chakavian texts of Croatian language, distinctly different from Church Slavonic go back to the 13th century, it was from 15th century that modern Croatian language emerged (recorded in texts as Vatican Croatian prayer book from 1400.) in the form (morphology, phonology and syntax) that slightly differs from contemporary Croatian standard language, except its glossary.

File:Kasic.jpg
Bartul Kašić's manuscript Bible translation

The standardization attempts of Croatian language in older Chakavian variant can be traced back to the first Croatian dictionary by Faust Vrančić: Dictionarium quinque nobilissimarum Europae linguarum -- Latinae, Italicae, Germanicae, Dalmatiae et Ungaricae, Venice 1595, and first Croatian grammar by Bartul Kašić: Institutionum linguae illyricae libri duo, Romae 1604. Interestingly, the language of Jesuit Kašić's unpublished (until 2000) translation of the Bible stopped by Vatican veto (Old and New Testament (manuscripts 1622-1636) in the Croatian Shtokavian-Yekavish dialect (the ornate style of the Dubrovnik Renaissance literature) is closer to the contemporary standard Croatian language (problems of orthography apart) as are French of Montaigne’s “Essays” or King James Bible English to their respective successors — modern standard languages.

This period, sometimes called "Baroque Slavism" was crucial in formation of literary idiom that was to become Croatian standard language — the 17th century witnessed flowering in three fields that shaped modern Croatian:

File:Gundulic.jpg
Ivan Gundulić: Tears of the prodigal son, 1622

This "triple achievement" of Baroque Slavism in first half of the 17th century laid the firm foundation upon which later Illyrian movement completed the work of language standardisation.

See also: List of books on Croatian grammar, Croatian dictionaries

First standard attempt

In late medieval times up to 17th century, the major part of half-autonomous Croatia ruled by two domestic dynasties of princes (bani) Zrinski and Frangipani linked by inter-marriages. Toward 17th cent. both ones intended to unify Croatia also on the cultural and lingual level, and with a best foresight they selected for their official language the transitional Ikavish-Kaykavian dialect being justly intermediate between all main Croatian dialects (Chakavian, Kaykavian and Ikavish-Šćakavian); it is used till now in northern Istra, and in valleys of Kupa, Mrežnica and Sutla, sporadically also elsewhere in middle Croatia.

This one then became the cultivated elite language of administration and intellectuals from Istra peninsula and Croatian coast, accross central Croatia up to northern valleys of Drava and Mura. The cultural apogee on this unified standard in 17th cent. were the editions as "Adrianskog mora sirena" (Syren of Adriatic Sea) and "Putni tovaruš" (Travelling escort), being on the upper cultural level of contemporary Europe. However, this first lingual renaissance in Croatia was stopped by the political execution of both dinasties from Wienna emperors in 1671. Then, Croatian elite in 18th cent. gradually abandoned this combined Croatian standard, and after Austrian initiative (Wien 1850), replaced them by one-dialectal Neo-Shtokavian.

Illyrian period

But, due to the unique Croat linguistic situation, formal shaping of Croatian standard language was a process that took almost four centuries to complete: Croatian language is a 'three-dialects' tongue (a somewhat simplistic way to distinguish between main Croatian dialects is to refer them to the pronoun 'what', which is ča (cha), kaj (kay), što (shto) in related Chakavian, Kaykavian and Shtokavian dialects) and 'three-scripts' language (the earliest Glagolitic, then Croatian-Bosnian Cyrillic and Latin script, with Latin script as the recent winner). The final obstacle to the unified Croatian literary language (based on celebrated vernacular Croatian Troubadour, Renaissance and Baroque (acronym TRB) literature (ca. 1490 to ca. 1670) from Dalmatia, Dubrovnik and Boka Kotorska was surmounted by Croatian national standardizer Ljudevit Gaj of Latin writing norm in 1830-50s.

Gaj and his Illyrian movement (centred in Kaykavian-speaking Croatian capital Zagreb) were, however, important more politically than linguistically. They "chose" Shtokavian dialect because they didn't have any other realistic option (as now apologized); this Neo-Shtokavian dialect which emerged from Bosnia after 16th century) was the major Croatian literary tongue from 18th century on. The main concern of linguists and lexicographers in 19th century was to achieve a more consistent and unified writing norm and orthography; another effort followed the peculiar Croatian trend for neologisms and combined word coinage, originating from the newer purist nature of Croatian literary language. One of the peculiarities of the "developmental trajectory" of the Croatian language is that there is no single towering figure among the Croatian linguists/philologists, because the vernacular folk speaking hardly (osmotically) percolated into the new "high culture" via literary works, so there was no need for revolutionary linguistic upheavals (the result was that old Chakavian and Kaykavian heritages of 1/2 Croats - now are mostly abandoned).

See also: Croatian linguistic purism

The Serbian connection

The 19th century language development overlapped with the upheavals that befell Serbian language. It was Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, an energetic and resourceful Serbian language and culture reformer, whose scriptory and orthographic stylisation of Serbian linguistic folk idiom made a radical break with the past; until his activity in the first half of the 19th century, Serbs had been using Serbian variant of Church Slavonic and a hybrid Russian-Slavonic language. His “Serbian Dictionary”, published in Vienna 1818 (along with the appended grammar), was the single most significant work of Serbian literary culture that shaped the profile of Serbian language (and, the first Serbian dictionary and grammar thus far).

Following the incentive of Austrian bureaucracy which preferred some kind of "unified" Croatian and Serbian languages for purely practical administrative reasons, in 1850, Slovenian philologist Franc Miklošič initiated a meeting of two Serbian philologists and writers, Vuk Karadžić and Đuro Daničić; together with five Croatian "men of letters": Ivan Mažuranić;, Dimitrije Demetar, Stjepan Pejaković;, Ivan Kukuljević; and Vinko Pacel. This, so-called "Vienna agreement" on the basic features of unified "Croatian or Serbian" or "Serbo-Croatian" language was signed by all eight participants (including Miklošič).

Karadžić's influence on Croatian standard idiom was only one of the reforms for Croats, mostly in some aspects of grammar and orthography; many other changes he made to Serbian were already present in Croatian. Both languages shared the common basis of South Slavic neo-Shtokavian dialect, but the Vienna agreement didn't have any effect in reality until a more "unified" standard appeared at the end of 19th century when Croatian sympathisers of Vuk Karadžić, so-called "Croatian Vukovites" (pro-Serbian linguists), wrote first modern (from the vantage point of dominating neogrammarian linguistic school) grammars, orthographies and dictionaries of language they called "Croatian or Serbian" (Serbs preferred Serbo-Croatian). Major grammar authorized by eminent Croatian linguist Tomislav Maretić; (Grammar and stylistics of Croatian or Serbian language) and dictionary by Broz and Iveković; (Croatian dictionary) temporarily fixed the elastic (grammatically, syntactically, lexically) standard of this new hybrid language (i.e. artificial creole pidgin).

Unification and separation with Serbian

Most Croats now believe that their language was supressed in "Serbian-dominated Yugoslavia", both during the kingdom period (1918-1941) and in socialism (1945 onwards). Some Serbs acknowledge that this was possible during 23 years of Kingdom of Yugoslavia, ruled by Serb kings, but reject the notion during the 36 years of SFRY, held in totalitarian rule by Josip Broz Tito, during which they claim that the Serbian language and its Cyrillic alphabet was systematically opressed.

In 1954 the leading linguists which supported the idea of the unified hybrid language signed the so-called 'Novi Sad Agreement' about the Croatian or Serbian Literary Language (Novosadski dogovor o hrvatskom ili srpskom književnom jeziku). The signers seemed to be mostly Serbs, and the first person to sign it was an important Bosnian Serb novelist Ivo Andrić, a 1961 Nobel laureate in literature. Some Croats believe that the Novi Sad agreement of 1954 was the most important effort by ruling Yugoslav Communist party to erase the "differences" between two old languages and impose their Ekavish form (associated with and mostly used in Serbian), written in Latin script, as the "official" (Serbocroat) language of Yugoslavia.

Serbian and Croatian have had a radically different past of almost four hundred years and only a few decades of moderately peaceful convergence; some believed that it was inevitable that they should diverge, especially when political pressures were applied to forge them into one artificial language, which both parties claimed was based on the other language.

In March 1967, Croats reacted against what they perceived as the "Serbianizing of Croatian language and culture". Eighteen Croatian scholarly institutions and cultural organizations dealing with language and literature, including foremost Croatian writers and linguists like Miroslav Krleža who was the head of the Lexicographic Institute, issued the "Declaration on the Name and the Status of Croatian Literary Language". This Declaration accused the federal authorities in Belgrade of imposing Serbian as the official state language and downgrading Croatian to the level of a local dialect.

In the Declaration, they asked for amendment to the Constitution expressing two claims:

  1. the equality not of three but of four literary languages in Yugoslavia: Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian and Macedonian, and consequently, the publication of all federal laws and other federal acts in four instead of three languages;
  2. the use of the Croatian standard language in schools and all mass communication media pertaining to the Republic of Croatia.

The Declaration was vociferously condemned by Yugoslav Communist authorities as an outburst of "Croatian nationalism". These events then led to a movement known as Croatian spring in 1970-1971. Notwithstanding the official opposition to the Declaration, Serbo-Croatian forced unification was essentially halted and the relative status quo remained until the end of communism. Political ambitions and calculations played the key role in the "invention" of this hybrid Serbo-Croatian language. Likewise, politics again was important agent in dissolving this artificially "unified" language. With the collapse of Communism and Yugoslavia, Serbo-Croatian language officially followed suit; now it continues to be only an unofficial 'lingua franca' in the communication of former Yougoslav countries.

Croatian language is today the formal official language of the Republic of Croatia and, along with Bosnian and Serbian, one of three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, it is no more identical with the Croatian public language prior to WW1: Yugoslavia's 70 years left evident impacts, and these are now corroborated by abundant immigration of exiled Croats from Bosnia and Vojvodina (north Serbia) teached in Serbian. Therefore, actual nominal 'Croatian' is nearer to Serbian than to Croatian alone before 1918; even, actual urban Croats mostly cannot understand Croatian medieval texts without a glossary or in a modernized translation; these citizens also hardly understand Chakavian or Kaykavian villagers being together 1/2 of all Croats.

References

  • Ivo Banac: Main Trends in the Croatian Language Question, YUP 1984
  • Branko Franolić: A Historical Survey of Literary Croatian, Nouvelles editions latines, 1984
  • Milan Moguš: A History of the Croatian Language, NZ Globus, 1995
  • Miro Kačić: Croatian and Serbian: Delusions and Distortions, Novi Most, Zagreb 1997

See also

External links

Language history

General links


References

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